Heterosexist microaggressions, student academic experience and perception of campus climate: Findings from an Italian higher education context

explained 26% of the variance in campus climate perception (p = .001). Finally, the moderation analysis evidenced that only the direct association between heterosexist microaggressions and perceptions of university climate was moderated by sexual orientation (interaction term: β = -.13, p < .001). The analysis of simple slopes indicated that only non-heterosexual students showed a decline in perceptions of university climate when exposed to a high frequency of het- erosexist microaggressions (b = -.42, p < .001; Fig 3). Fig 2. Significant and non-significant paths from the tested model. Solid lines indicate significant paths. Dashed lines represent non-significant paths. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231580.g002 Fig 3. The direct effect of heterosexist environmental microaggressions on student perception of campus climate, conditional on student sexual orientation. The effect was significant for non-heterosexual students, b = -.42, p < .001, bootstrap C.I. [-.69, -.14], and non-significant for heterosexual students, b = -.04, p = .26, bootstrap C.I. [-.13, .03]. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231580.g003 PLOS ONE Heterosexist microaggressions and campus climate PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231580 April 16, 2020 10 / 16